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This clear alcoholic drink is easily infused with the flavor of flowers, herbs, fruits, and even vegetables. Try combinations such as the light and sweet floral taste of lavender and rosemary. Lavender brings calming and healing and rosemary dispels negative spirits. Both of these are love herbs. What could be better? You’ll need the following:
1 quart bottle of vodka
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One of Mother Nature’s most effective healers is aloe. When I lived in colder areas with frost and snow, I grew aloe in a wide pot with good drainage and placed it in the sunniest spot in the kitchen, where it thrived with very little water. I am truly fortunate to live where it never gets below freezing, so I have a towering aloe in the left garden corner that is growing to tree-like proportions. When anyone in the household gets a burn, a bug bite, a rash, a scratch, an itch, or a sunburn, I march back and grab a piece, slice parallel with its flat side, and apply the juice liberally. We use it as a medicine as well as a beauty application for facials, hair gel, and skin massage and feel so blessed that all this heavenly healing is utterly free of cost. Aloe propagates through baby plants sprouting off the sides; you can repot the “babies” into little clay containers and give them as gifts to your circle to share the healing energy as well as protection and luck
Today’s Full Monday Moon on the 27th is known as the Beaver Moon or the Mourning Moon. It’s true the holidays aren’t always a barrel of laughs for everyone, and in fact can stir up old resentments and new stressors. You could consider or feel the need to make this a time of hibernating and healing if that sounds healthier for you. Are there any social obligations you can skip? Any family rituals that you’ve outgrown? Perhaps it’s time to create some new traditions of your own with you second “family” network of close and trusted friends. Or just keep it simple with your significant other. As Diana Rajchel points out in this year’s Llewellyn Witches’ Datebook, “forced jollity” might not be the way to go for you at this time. Ask yourself instead if what you need is some self-care and self-love right now. Ask this Full Moon for some added protection as well, so old wounds aren’t reopened again. Because Goddess knows, there are some unhappy souls who will always test your boundaries around this time of year.
Laury Christian Post, our latest “Women Who Howl at the Moon,” podcast guest was a very welcome addition to the show. She has her own cleverly named studio, Ravenrock Healing Arts, in Hartland, and has many nurturing services to offer, including reiki, pilates, and a unique healing through arts class. Be sure to listen to this episode to find out about unlikely friendships between ravens and wolves, being open to possibilities, and her special village holiday event this December 1st.
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Our world has changed, as it does, and as it must, though no one could have anticipated such a catalyst. I have been away from these boards for so long, I hardly know where to begin. At the onset of the pandemic, I was working in elder care, a terribly vulnerable population to face COVID. Through sheer tenacity we were able to keep the residents in the facility safe and health, much to our surprise. My own family fared well; it was only a few months ago that my adult daughter came down with COVID. She lives on her own and was able to isolate. Fortunately, she had a mild case and was back on her feet in a week.
COVID hit my household three weeks ago when my adult son tested positive. It knocked him flat, and he is still recovering from the aftereffects, though he is certainly much better. Amid all the uncertainty of the ongoing pandemic I did not expect to face a health crisis of a different nature, one isolation and rest couldn't resolve. In February I received an unexpected and utterly surprising cancer diagnosis; in May it was determined to be stage three, necessitating twelve weeks of chemotherapy.
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Dreams about surgery can be scary, but often, they’re related to personal healing. If the dream doesn’t have to do with some outside factors (like you or a friend undergoing surgery in real life), then it is probably a teaching moment. Think about what sort of surgery you are having in your dream, and what things might be bothering you in your waking life that need to be cut out. Surgeries are meant to help you, not hurt you, and in the same way, this dream may be encouraging you to get rid of something unhealthy from your life. Even if the separation is uncomfortable, scary, or painful, it will be better for your physical and emotional well-being in the long run. If you have been struggling with feelings of anxiety in your life, or just general distress, consider what the source might be and what parts of that you can change or carve out of your life. Trust me—it will be a wonderful, cleansing process!
Healing Temple Meditation
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The first new moon of fall (this Wednesday, October 6th) couldn’t be a better time to begin a good, cleansing detox both inside and out. The artifices and general busy-ness of modern life make it easy to forget sometimes that our inner and outer worlds reflect each other and often need the same amount of care and attention.
As we move through the cycle of the year we accumulate a lot of “stuff”; both physical stuff and emotional stuff. Time for us to change with the season! Time to clear things out, heal, purify and nourish, release, let go and start fresh. All you need are my favorite cosmic twins, Fire and Water.
As I discuss in an earlier post, it’s an awesome, curious fact of physics that water is essentially created by fire. The combination of oxygen and hydrogen requires combustion to transform those gases into liquid water. Inseparable, they make a great polar pairing on many levels and in many workings and even cosmologies, for instance the Norse Ginnunga Gap: the primordial void where fire and ice came together to form the world, the elemental giants and then the gods.
My current favorite way, and such a perfect way for the fall season, to combine the two elements to do a multi-level detox is to brew up a spicy, delicious, Moon-charged fire cider.
If you haven’t heard about the fire cider craze or at least haven’t gotten around to trying it, I highly recommend doing so and especially right now as we move into the chilly, sniffle-riddled seasons. Not only is it a potent immunity-boosting tonic, it’s a delicious seasoning/sauce that’s great to have on hand for sauces, soups, salads, marinades, pickling and anything else you can think of. I’ve been using it regularly for about a year now and I’m hooked.
